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As was remarked in the first supplementary volume to the Hyperion Liszt Series (CDA67346), there was an understanding that new discoveries would be issued from time to time; research into manuscript holdings in various libraries has revealed that works which were first thought to be rough sketches are in fact playable, virtually completed pieces. The Sketchbook N5, held in the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv in Weimar, contains complete drafts and sketches to a number of such works, including a set of eight pieces presented here under the title Préludes et Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (given in brackets by Liszt) in order to avoid confusion with the single piece of 1833–4 of similar name. This is not so much an early version of the famous Harmonies poétiques et religieuses as a set of eight early works whose themes were to crop up variously across a range of later compositions.

With the Concerto sans orchestre we are probably dealing with the first complete version of the piece which would eventually become Concerto No 2; the musical material will be familiar, though almost all of the textures were greatly altered over the years. The things immediately apparent are the work’s originality and freshness—qualities which Liszt managed to retain through all the revisions—and that this is already a splendid work in its own right.

The Album-Leaf: Magyar in B flat minor was composed for Ignaz Moscheles, and its musical material is almost identical to part of the eleventh of the Magyar Dalok. The Ungarischer Marsch in B flat has remained unpublished, and although the manuscript contains suggestions of instrumentation, no orchestral score of the piece has come to light. Pensées again comes from Sketchbook N5, the only completed work in its final pages, and is a little gem dating from late in 1845. Album-Leaves by Liszt continue to turn up at auction or on odd pages amongst collections; four of these are presented here. The familiar piano version of the song O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst! remains Liszt’s best-loved melody: the third of the Liebesträume. But that transcription differs considerably from the song, and the piece has been conjecturally reconstructed here from a variety of sources.

Reviews

‘Leslie Howard is once again an ardent and reflective champion in both his playing and in his brilliantly informative essay; he also promises further discoveries. Hyperion's sound and presentation is immaculate as ever’ (Gramophone)

‘His stylistic understanding is always impeccable, and as recorded here his Steinway makes a warmly appealing sound’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘So we learn more about this extraordinary composer, thanks to that rare combination of Howard's scholarly musicianship … and fearless keyboard technique, allied to the ongoing commitment of Hyperion Records—without which the entire musical world would be so much the poorer’ (International Record Review)

‘Howard's playing is so refined that even the almost impossible passages of the Concerto are made to seem easy and this is simply the best recorded piano sound I've heard in years’ (The Times)

‘No-one fascinated by Liszt, or by Romanticism at fever pitch, will tolerate being without this. Howard's Steinway sounds like it's in your living room—whispering, crooning, or thundering—up close and near. Liszt lives! Long live Liszt!’ (Fanfare, USA)

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Introduction

As we remarked in the first supplementary volume to the Hyperion Liszt Series, there was an understanding that new discoveries would be issued from time to time. There are still pieces turning up at auction, and we are still looking for missing works. Research into manuscript holdings in various libraries has also revealed that works which were first thought to be rough sketches are in fact playable, virtually completed pieces.

The Sketchbook N5, held in the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv in Weimar, contains complete drafts and sketches to a number of works, and the contents date from some time in 1845 to early 1847. In her doctoral thesis on the volume, Rena Charnin-Mueller refers to it as the ‘Tasso’ Sketchbook, both for ease of identification, and because the volume contains the first draft in short score of Liszt’s symphonic poem Tasso – Lamento e trionfo. The volume also contains the first draft (without organ) of the C minor Mass for men’s voices. Much of the remainder is piano music, and several works have already been in circulation, as well as published and recorded: the Cujus animam transcription (see volume 24 of the Hyperion Liszt Series), Spirto gentil (volume 17), the Cavatine from Robert le Diable (volume 30), and the Sketchbook begins with an untitled work which has been recorded as Prelude, S171d (volume 47). This last piece is re-recorded here together with the seven pieces sketched immediately after it in the N5 Sketchbook under the generic title Liszt wrote at the beginning. These other seven pieces had been previously overlooked because they appeared to be work in progress, and it proved difficult to establish a definitive text until the present writer was able to devote the proper amount of time to examine the Sketchbook personally. Many of these pieces had been published and recorded by the pioneering Albert Brussee in the Netherlands, but the text prepared for the present recording and future Liszt Society publication turns out to be at a wide variance from that of the Brussee project. Liszt’s generic title is the familiar Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, but in brackets he also suggests Préludes et Harmonies poétiques et religieuses and we have taken that as our working title for the present set of pieces in order to avoid confusion with the single piece of 1833–4 (see volume 7), the 1847 set of pieces (see volumes 7 and 47), several single works intended for the project (see volumes 47 and 56) and the ‘definitive’ collection of 1853 (see volume 7).

The first piece is headed ‘Nancy 16 nov 45’. There are some signs of revision, ignored in the present reading, but taken up in the 1847 version of the piece (as in volume 47). The musical material is the only part of the 1845–6 series which makes its way through the 1847 set and into the 1853 set – as part of Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude. (It is clear that the religious aspect of this project grew more firm over the years. After meeting the Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein in 1847, Liszt produced a much more meditative collection, and most of the earlier pieces were dropped.) The second piece (‘20 nov 45’) is very indistinctly titled. If Langueur? is correct (and whatever else it may be, the question mark is Liszt’s), it is not especially reflected in the content of the piece, which is a yearning melody, punctuated by a more hymn-like section – derived from the same theme – which, after the reprise, forms the coda. This is an excellent piece, and Liszt’s subsequent neglect of it is inexplicable. The third, untitled, piece (‘4 dec 45’) is also effectively monothematic, but the appassionato transformation of the material is of such a different character that the kinship with the opening may not seem apparent upon a first hearing.

The fourth piece is a much larger work, and its principal theme will be easily recognized as the forerunner to that of the First Ballade (see volume 2). The title – the question mark of uncertainty is Liszt’s – is the latest of several attempts. It is on a pasted-over new introduction; others are Disjecti membra poetae and Attente. The further title Ballade (?) is a later addition in coloured pencil, and refers to later plans. This complex piece, which ranges over an extraordinary array of key changes, is also the most complicated work in this set in terms of the rewriting, overwriting and expanding of the material. A whole section was added after the completion of the next piece in the book, extending the original suppressed da capo and coda although not, unfortunately, completing the final cadence – supplied here by the present writer. Liszt sleuths will notice that the second theme turns up in a very different guise at the coda of the last of the Consolations (only in the final version – see volume 9).

The fifth piece (untitled, but dated ‘6 dec 45’) is again monothematic, and is an early example of a kind of piano writing often found in Liszt’s compositions in the enharmonic F sharp major, especially those of a religious serenity. Although the thematic material does not recur in Liszt’s œuvre, the style is particularly akin to that of Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude. At the head of this piece is a check-list in the composer’s hand, presumably of the works he was then contemplating for the published collection. The list of eleven pieces begins with number two, presumably because number one was to have been the 1833–4 piece already published. (That piece was revised in 1847 and again for the final publication in 1853, under the title Pensée des morts.) The list reads:

2. mi b [i.e., E flat – the first piece in N5]3. ut min [C minor – the second piece in N54. Elegie Pr de Prusse [On page 4 of N5 is written in Liz't hand the third stanza of thepoem Bei der Musik des Prinzen L[ouis] F[erdinand de Prusse] by Theodor Körner (1791–1815), along with some fragments which appear to be by Lamartine, the inspirer of the title and the whole musical project of the Harmonies. Liszt’s Élégie sur des motifs de Prince Louis Ferdinand, first version, had been composed in 1844, and was published in 1847 – see volume 37 – and formed no part of the eventual collection]5. Marche des P [Liszt’s transcription of Berlioz’sMarche des pèlerins from Harold in Italy may date from the late 1830s. It was not included in the eventual collection, but was revised in 1862–3 for publication – see volume 5]6. M. K. [i.e. Marie Kalergis, inspiration and dedicatee of several Liszt pieces – the eighth piece in N5]7. Chopin [piece unidentified – echoes of Schumann’s Carnaval in the title – it can have nothing to do with Liszt’s later Chopin song transcriptions, and if any one of pieces 3, 6 or 7 in N5 is relevant here we do not know]8. re b [D flat – the fourth piece in N5] 9. Prière d’un enfant [a piece from earlier in 1845, S171c – see volume 47]1 0. sol b [G flat – the present piece – i.e. the fifth piece in N5]1 1 (2de Sonnet fa #) [The brackets are Liszt’s, and the piece is probably the second Petrarch sonnet setting, Benedetto sia’l giorno, of which song there are at least two manuscripts in F sharp major, but no extant piano transcription in that key has turned up]

The sixth piece is entitled Attente, but we have no further clue as to its application to this piece, any more than we know why it was a working title for the fourth piece in the book. Liszt has indicated the reprise of some of the opening material after the contrasting middle section, but has not supplied the coda. The present writer has derived ten closing bars from earlier analogous material.

Although there are some unrelated discarded sketches (one dated ‘Gand 20 janvier’ – and Liszt was only in Ghent on that date in 1846!) amongst the next pages of N5, there are two more pieces which appear to belong to the same collection, especially since the second of them is mentioned in the check-list above. The seventh piece bears the title Alternative, and whether it is merely an alternative to the sixth piece is impossible to divine at this remove in time. This piece is complete on one page, and has virtually the same melody, but with an unfamiliar introduction, as the song Gestorben war ich (best known in the later piano transcription as Liebesträume No 2 – see volume 19). Since, as far as we know, Liszt hadn’t yet written the song (assuming this page to be contemporary with the rest of the book), might he have adapted the melody to the words later? This was not a thing he did often, but we know he did it at least once (Élégie – En ces lieux, S301b was adapted to the music of Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth, S274i). Unsurprisingly, this piece is quite different from all three piano versions otherwise known: S192i (on volume 11), S540a (volume 26) and S541/2 (volume 19). The eighth piece is really only a sketch: an eight-bar Andante ending with ‘etc’, and a rough nine-bar sketch for a middle section. The present writer has attempted a fully developed completion in homage to Liszt.

It was Liszt’s habit, when preparing the earliest drafts of his works for piano and orchestra, to begin with a score for solo piano, albeit with some indications of instrumentation, and then to expand it, orchestrating much of the material and then developing quite new textures in the solo part. We can see this process interrupted incomplete in the posthumously published Concerto in E flat major, S125a (sometimes misleadingly called ‘No 3’ – see volume 53a), and the plethora of surviving drafts of the two famous concertos clearly carry the process to a painstakingly refined conclusion if we compare the first results with the last. In the Concerto sans orchestre recorded here, we are probably dealing with the first complete version of the piece which would eventually become Concerto No 2. All the musical material will be familiar, though almost all of the textures were greatly altered over the years – after all, the final touches to the piece were made a quarter of a century later. As so often, many of the technical solutions had to await the final version; here there are many quite extraordinary difficulties. The things immediately apparent are the work’s originality and freshness – qualities which Liszt managed to retain through all the revisions – and that this is already a splendid work in its own right. We have borrowed the title for the otherwise untitled MS from Schumann.

The Album-Leaf: Magyar in B flat minor was composed for Ignaz Moscheles, and its musical material is almost identical to part of the eleventh of the Magyar Dalok (see volume 29). The Ungarischer Marsch in B flat may have been intended for some specific occasion – it has that festive air common to its fellows in the Liszt canon – but it has remained unpublished. Although the two-stave MS contains suggestions of instrumentation, no orchestral score of the piece has come to light. Besides, the MS is full of pedal directions, fully authenticating the performance of the work on the pianoforte.

Beginning at the back of the N5 Sketchbook, Liszt made many small sketches for projected compositions which were never carried further. The only completed work in the final pages dates from exactly the same period as those in the collection of eight at the front of the book, and so is obviously to be considered apart. It looks as if Liszt intended to write more than one piece to go under the general title Pensées, but nothing can be made of the fragments which follow this little gem (the subtitle ‘Nocturne’ can only be deciphered with great effort) composed on 6 November 1845.

Album-Leaves by Liszt continue to turn up at auction or on odd pages amongst collections. The Album-Leaf in D major, S164h (in the Weimar archive) may even date from Liszt’s apprentice years – it bears the interwoven letters L and D signifying Laus Deo, which we find on many pages of his earliest works. The Album-Leaf: Preludio, S164j is similar to several others, although the particular conclusion in F sharp major is new to this version. The Album-Leaf in A flat major, S166l is also in Weimar, and produces some very original harmony in its touching efforts at counterpoint. The Album-Leaf, S167h is really a game for the musical eye – three times the same-sounding chord requires different enharmonic spelling in order to accommodate the left-hand line.

The familiar piano version of the song O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst! remains Liszt’s best-loved melody: the third of the Liebesträume (see volume 19). But that transcription differs considerably from the song, both in the central section and at the very end. There is an incomplete MS in the Weimar archive (in the Z12 folder) that begins at bar 26 of the known version (the bar after the first cadenza), but in A major rather than A flat, and proceeds in a text which follows the song absolutely for some fifty-two bars. The point where the MS breaks off is the final reprise of the melody – bar 61 in the published transcription; bar 77 in this version. The piece has been conjecturally reconstructed here by taking the opening of the published version, transposed into A major, and using the song’s piano part for bar 25, inserting the Z12 pages, then playing the last page of the published version, but with the song’s piano part for the final ten bars (also transposed into A major).